The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  He pressed his lips grimly together, realizing how she had trapped him into it. Then he looked at Zachar with narrowed eyes. “You want this woman?” he asked in Russian.

  “Yes.”

  “Give two chisels and one blanket. She yours all time.”

  “No.” Raven angrily protested. “He agrees the marriage is no more. You have to give him nothing.”

  “I will pay what he asks.”

  “No.” She turned on her former husband and shouted accusations and insults at him. Soon he was yelling back, calling her a witch and other equally vile things.

  Within minutes, their loud voices had attracted the attention of those in the tent. Zachar had mixed feelings when he saw Baranov emerge. Nothing he’d tried had been successful in stopping this argument. Neither had allowed him to get more than two words in.

  “What is going on here?” But not even Baranov’s initial demand gained their silence. He took the pistol from Zachar’s hand and fired it into the air. The explosion had the desired effect. “Now what is all this about?”

  Zachar told him, then Raven attempted to give her side of it, only to be interrupted by her warrior husband. Baranov held up the gun, once again demanding silence, then looked at Zachar. “You want this woman?”

  “I want her. This is my son.” He held the child more closely in his arms, confident Baranov would understand. After all he had two children by the Indian woman he lived with whom he greatly adored. “I am willing to pay the price he asks for her, although Raven claims he isn’t entitled to it.”

  Baranov made a slight bow in Raven’s direction. “I compliment the lady for so stridently protecting your interests. However, in the name of peace and good will, the price will be paid.” While the interpreter translated his answer for the benefit of the surrounding Kolosh, Baranov murmured to Zachar, “The items will be charged to your account with the company and the amount deducted from your earnings.”

  Not even Raven chose to argue with Nanuk’s decision, and the matter was settled. Frog of the Forest was presented with two chisels and one blanket, and Raven became Zachar’s woman.

  Later that week Baranov performed a crude baptismal ceremony, christening Zachar’s son Vasili Zacharevich Tarakanov, but no one ever called the boy by that name. Instead they called him Wolf. An exceedingly clever boy, within a month at New Archangel his vocabulary had become liberally interspersed with Russian words.

  In October it began to rain—endlessly, it seemed to Mikhail as he splashed across the sodden compound toward his brother’s hut. Cold weather was rarely a problem in this region of Sitka Sound, but the sluicing rains and thick fogs were a constant source of discomfort.

  Mikhail turned a weather eye to the west. Heavy clouds completely hid Mount Edgecumbe’s island and blurred the others in the bay. The frigate Neva no longer loomed in the harbor. A fortnight after the high chamberlain arrived, she had sailed, carrying a cargo of furs valued at 450,000 rubles to Canton, and the Elizaveta, one of the small company ships, had been sent to Kodiak for supplies.

  The heavy rain had halted work on the keel of a new ship that High Chamberlain Rezanov had ordered to be built and called the Avoss, the “Perhaps.” Insulted by the Mikado’s treatment of him during his ambassadorial mission to Japan, Rezanov intended to send a naval force there and punish the island nation. The Avoss would be part of that flotilla. He had also ordered Baranov to prepare living quarters on the island in the harbor for the “compulsory immigrants,” as he called them, that would be brought back from Japan at the conclusion of his military expedition. Now everyone referred to the island as Japonski.

  Mikhail didn’t share the high chamberlain’s enthusiasm for the plan; no one did. The Russian American Company didn’t have enough ships to keep its settlements provisioned with supplies, patrol its territories to prevent foreign ships from trading in their waters, and escort hunting expeditions for sea otter. That they should attempt to mount an offensive was ludicrous. Yet, no matter how reasonable Rezanov was on other issues, such as the establishment of medical care, native schools, and a pension fund for the old and disabled, he wouldn’t be swayed from his planned Japanese campaign. However they might disagree, the word of the forty-two-year-old plenipotentiary was obeyed.

  Arriving at his brother’s log hut, Mikhail paused outside the door and knocked. Once he would have simply walked in, but Raven’s presence had changed that. Twice he had walked in unannounced and intruded on an intimate scene. Now he knocked first.

  No sound came from inside. All he could hear was the hammering of the rain on the roof. He waited, hunching his shoulders against the downpour, then knocked again. But there was no response. Turning, he scanned the other buildings of the settlement, not relishing the idea of tramping through the rain and mud to find Zachar. Rezanov, who had taken over the active command, had called another council of the navigators and chief hunters as well as Baranov and his second, Ivan Kuskov. He and Zachar were to be at Rezanov’s cabin within an hour. More than likely he’d find Zachar at the commissary buying more trinkets for Raven.

  He heard the splat of footsteps coming around the cabin and turned as Raven walked around the corner carrying an armload of firewood. A blanket was draped over her, hooding her head. Although she walked swiftly, the picture was not one of a woman scurrying through the rain. She carried herself with too much dignity for that. More than once Mikhail had been struck by her pride, which occasionally bordered on insolence.

  There was the smallest hesitation in her stride when she noticed him waiting by the door. “You are wet,” she observed and managed to make him feel foolish for standing outside in the rain when he could have been inside where it was dry.

  “I was looking for Zachar.”

  “He will return soon.” She walked past him and pushed open the cabin door.

  Belatedly he noticed how awkwardly she managed it, hampered by the armload of wood. He followed her inside and shut the door for her, then turned around. The blanket had fallen from her head, revealing the shiny black hair that framed her face. He purposely avoided looking at her.

  “Let me take that firewood.”

  As he reached to take it from her, his arm grazed her breast. He jerked away, nearly dropping the split logs, as if the contact had burned him. She wore an amused smile on her lips. It was the sultry fullness of her lips that altered the whole effect of the strong bone structure of her face and created an image of compelling beauty—that and the unfathomable blackness of her eyes. He felt the tightening in his loins and abruptly turned away to carry the logs to the woodbox by the fireplace.

  “It is long since you were with a woman.” The nearness of her voice told Mikhail that she followed him.

  All his senses seemed to clamor for his attention at once, making him aware of the smell of wood smoke permeating the musty air, the plop of water dripping from a leak in the roof, and the cot sitting in the corner of the single-roomed cabin.

  “There is a shortage of women here.” Mikhail was more than willing to blame his reaction on his recent forced celibacy, at the same time recognizing that she had the kind of looks that turned a man’s thoughts to sex. He dropped the logs into the box, letting their thumping clatter fill the silence, then moved to stand in front of the fireplace flames. “You said you expect Zachar back soon?”

  “Yes.” She removed the blanket and laid it across the woodbox to dry. “You want a woman to lay with. Why do you not ask me?” She stood at his side, facing him, almost taunting him. “Or do you think me ugly?”

  “No.” The truth came quickly. “You belong to Zachar.”

  “But you are his brother. It is acceptable to my people for a woman to have two husbands if they are brothers.”

  Mikhail laughed harshly. “Russians don’t find such heathen practices acceptable.”

  “Why? A woman needs sons. Zachar is too old. More often now his organ is limp in my hands. You are yet strong. You could give me many sons, I think.”

  He
r remarks generated a heat that filled him. He stared at the yellow flames of the fire, inwardly cursing her for doing this to him. “Zachar isn’t too old,” he asserted. “Baranov is sixteen or seventeen years older than my brother and he has a three-year-old child.”

  “He is Nanuk,” she said, as if that explained it all. “Would you not like to lay with me?”

  Mikhail swung angrily around, but he didn’t have a chance to speak as the door burst open and Zachar came charging in, the sound of his laughter mixing with the high-pitched giggle of his son. Suddenly Mikhail wasn’t sure how he would have answered Raven’s question. Troubled by the guilt that followed his uncertainty, he felt uncomfortable facing his brother.

  “I didn’t know you were here, Mikhail.” Zachar smiled as he lowered his son, Wolf, to the floor. The boy vigorously shook his wet head, shaking himself like a dog and scattering a spray of droplets in every direction.

  “I just got here.” The need to establish that he hadn’t been alone with Raven for long merely increased his sense of guilt. He hadn’t betrayed his brother, but he had wanted to. “Rezanov has called another meeting.”

  Self-consciously, Mikhail moved away from the fireplace—and Raven—to head for the door. “Wait,” Zachar said. “I’ll walk with you.”

  “I go.” The boy darted to Zachar’s side as soon as he realized he was going to leave.

  “No.” Zachar gave him a little shove toward Raven. “You stay here and look after your mother. I’ll be back later.” There was a pleased smile on his face as he followed Mikhail out the door, then paused to turn his collar up against the rain. “He’s a good boy,” he remarked to Mikhail. “I think he’s becoming fond of me.”

  “Yes.” Mikhail couldn’t remember ever seeing his brother so happy, practically bursting with pride over his newly found family. They were all too new and shiny for Zachar to see any flaw in them, Mikhail realized.

  With heads bent against the pouring rain, they started across the settlement grounds toward the stairs that led to the bastion atop the broad, flat knoll. “What is this meeting about? Were you told?” Zachar asked.

  “No.”

  They walked several paces in silence, then Zachar spoke. “I like this Rezanov. He is a wise man. I know that many of the promyshleniki on the seal islands—the Pribilofs—were unhappy with his order to slaughter no more seals this year, but it must be stopped or there will be no more left where once there were millions swarming over the rocks like bees in a honeycomb.”

  “You have been there?” Mikhail frowned.

  “Once, long ago,” Zachar admitted as he started up the steps. “I have heard the raids of the Boston ships killed more than a million seals this year alone.”

  “We lose a lot of furs to them, and the Kolosh obtain many guns from them. Sometimes I think the Kolosh are better armed than we are. At least Rezanov agrees with Baranov, though, that we must trade with the English and the Boston men for supplies. We cannot depend on the company ships sailing from Okhotsk. Look at our situation now. Our flour ration is down to one pound a month per man, and winter is coming.”

  As they mounted the last step, Zachar nodded a confirmation of their straitened circumstance. “The Elizaveta should return from Kodiak soon with supplies.”

  * * *

  Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov was a tall, handsome man of forty-two. Clean-shaven and dressed in one of his less ornate military uniforms, he carried himself erectly, naturally commanding the attention of the men who had crowded into his small cabin. His thin lips were drawn together as his pale blue eyes surveyed them, his manner one of grimness.

  Mikhail glanced at a wigless Baranov, his bald crown fringed by flaxen hair. Years of gazing at far horizons had etched lines into the old Russian’s face that gave him a perpetually quizzical expression. But the look in his eyes was one of sadness and resignation. Mikhail guessed the news wasn’t good. Any minute he expected Baranov to lift his hands and offer the usual declaration: “It’s in God’s hands.”

  Rezanov spoke, not mincing any words. “We have received word, as yet unconfirmed, that the Elizaveta was lost at sea in a gale. There will be no supplies from Kodiak. In addition, the native flotilla of hunters sank in the storm with the loss of two hundred men and the season’s largest catch of furs.” All around Mikhail hands were lifted in gestures of resignation, but there was more. “A message has also been received which contained an unsubstantiated report that the convict settlement at Yakutat has been wiped out by the Kolosh.” The agricultural and shipbuilding outpost built on the Alaskan mainland had been an experiment modeled after the colonization of Botany Bay by the British. “The Kolosh have also attacked other redoubts to the north but were repulsed. However, I believe we can count on increased hostilities in our area.”

  A few mumbled their remorse over the deaths of men they knew, but Rezanov discouraged any discussion of the news. He signaled for his personal manservant to bring the charts and books to the table, then spread them open for all to study. They were the records of the explorer George Vancouver.

  As Mikhail listened to Rezanov expound on his plans for the future expansion of the Russian American Company’s territories, he had the distinct feeling that the two recent disasters had only made the high chamberlain more determined to forge ahead. Rezanov strongly recommended that the company abolish its practice of depending solely on the fur trade and engage in the merchant business as well. Mikhail’s lust for faraway places was aroused by Rezanov’s list of exotic foreign ports as he talked about establishing consuls in the company’s name at Burma and in the Philippines, building more settlements first along the Columbia River, then at California and Hawaii. Soon, he claimed, the Peace of Amiens would be broken and Europe would go to war against the belligerent Corsican Napoleon. That would leave the company free to solidify its holdings in Alaska and expand into new territories.

  “Look at the map.” He punched a finger at the chart on the table. “The one who holds Alaska can control the Pacific.”

  A drop of water splashed on Mikhail’s cheek and broke the spell woven by Rezanov’s grandiose dreams of an empire. The reality at Sitka was leaking roofs, lurking Kolosh, and dwindling supplies.

  The arrival of the Yankee schooner Juno at Sitka provided a temporary solution to the provision problem. Rezanov purchased the vessel and its cargo, which consisted of a large quantity of trade goods, including tinware, pottery, utensils, hardware, muslins, and a variety of implements. More importantly, the ship had nearly two thousand gallons of molasses, nineteen casks of salt pork, four thousand pounds of rice, eleven casks of wheat flour, and other food stores, enough to last several weeks.

  For a while, they had plenty to eat and there was music in the settlement, furnished by a duet of clarinet and violin played by a Yankee seaman who had signed on with the company and the high chamberlain himself. But a combination of unusually heavy rains and sleet and thick fogs during the latter months of the year and the constant menace of Kolosh prevented the Russians from supplementing their food supply with fresh game and fish. It was forbidden to leave the fort, and they were forced to begin eating the Aleuts’ supply of oil and dried fish.

  The Juno was dispatched to Kodiak to obtain whatever provisions the Russian village could spare, but all she brought back was more whale oil and dried fish. By February, scurvy was rampant at Sitka. Out of the nearly two hundred Russians at the redoubt, eight were dead and sixty were completely disabled by the debilitating disease.

  The situation was dire. A winter sea voyage to Hawaii was out of the question; crossing the storm-riddled Pacific was too lengthy and too risky. At another meeting, Rezanov proposed sailing the schooner down the coast, exploring the mouth of the Columbia River for a future site, obtaining fresh game and fish, and trading at the small Spanish presidio of Los Farallones del Puerto de San Francisco for foodstuffs. Although all Spanish ports along the California coast were closed to foreign ships, he intended to gain admittance by using his credentials as R
ussia’s ambassador to the world. A minimum crew of twenty was required to sail the Juno, but the weakened condition of the men at the settlement made it mandatory that she carry a full complement of thirty in the event of illness.

  Mikhail immediately volunteered to go on the voyage, but Baranov banged his fist on the table in protest. “You cannot weaken this garrison by taking all of our able-bodied men! The Kolosh are a constant danger. We must be able to defend ourselves should they attack!”

  After considerable dissension, a compromise was reached. Rezanov agreed that part of his crew would be made up of men showing the early signs of scurvy. Mikhail’s petition to join the expedition was refused. His disappointment quickly turned to resentment when Zachar was selected to go.

  “Why do you take my brother and not me?” he protested. “He is older and has a family. I am an experienced navigator. I can be of more use to you than he will. He is a hunter.”

  “There are other men with families who will be going. And we will have need for an experienced hunter before we reach the Spanish port,” Rezanov asserted sharply, making it plain he would tolerate no more questioning of his decisions.

  Trembling with anger, Mikhail fell silent and heard little of the ensuing conversation. Inwardly he railed. He was the navigator; he was the one who longed to see new places. Yet it always seemed to be his older brother who ventured into unknown territory first—his brother who had no desire to go. All he had ever traveled was the old routes—Sitka to Kodiak, the Pribilofs, Unalaska, or mainland redoubts and back. Now he was stuck here, serving out his required enlistment in the company as a harbor pilot.

  When the meeting ended, Mikhail left without speaking to his brother. His resentment and disappointment were too keen. At the moment he was so angry that he even blamed Zachar for being chosen instead of him.